The references cited herein are not admitted to be prior art to the claimed invention.
Chimeric receptors made up of peptide segments from different receptors have different uses, such as being used to assess the functions of different sequence regions and to assess the activity of different compounds at a particular receptor. Examples of using chimeric receptors to assess the activity of different compounds are provided by Dull et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,859,609; Dull et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,030,576; Fuller et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,981,195; and International Application No. PCT/US96/12336, International Publication No. WO 97/05252.
Dull et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,859,609, and Dull et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,030,576, indicate the production and use of chimeric receptors comprising a ligand-binding domain of a predetermined receptor and a heterologous reporter polypeptide. The Dull et al. patents provide as examples of chimerics: (1) a chimeric receptor made up of the insulin receptor extracellular a chain, and the EGF receptor transmembrane and cytoplasmic domains without any HIR B-chain sequence; and (2) a hybrid receptor made up of the v-erB oncogene product intracellular domain fused to the EGF receptor extracellular and transmembrane domains.
Fuller et al. International Publication No. WO 97/05252 feature chimeric receptors made up of metabotropic glutamate receptor (mGluR) domains and calcium receptor (CaR) domains. The chimeric receptors allow the coupling of functional aspects of a mGluR with a CaR.
An example of the use of chimeric receptors to assess the functions of different sequence region receptors are found in studies identifying regions of different guanine nucleotide-binding protein-coupled receptors important for guanine nucleotide-binding protein coupling. (See, Kobilka et al., Science 240:1310-1316, 1988; Wess et al., FEBS Lett. 258:133-136, 1989; Cotecchia et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 87:2896-2900, 1990; Lechleiter et al., EMBO J. 9:4381-4390, 1990; Wess et al., Mol. Pharmacol. 38:517-523, 1990; and Pin et al, EMBO J. 13:342-348, 1994.)